1. Products

Products manufactured by rolling are divided into long products: blooms, billets, beams, sections, wires, rails, and flat products: plates, sheets, coils.

The respective shares of long products and flat products vary greatly with a country's level of development. Long products account for around 2/3 of steel production in a developing country, while this share falls to 1/3 of total production in a developed country. Correspondingly, the share of flat products rises from 1/3 to 2/3 of total production.

In 1996, hot rolling of flat products on a strip mill required around 0.4 h/ t, cold rolling of flat products around 2 h/ t, and flat product coating workshops consumed 0.3 h/ t.

Still in 1996, long-product rolling mills required around 1.8 h/t, and long-product heat-treatment shops less than 0.1 h/t. These figures...